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This blog is to express my own understanding of organizational and real-life phenomena that I find interesting. I was in the software industry as an engineer and a manager for nearly 15 years before I moved out to Organization Development (OD). I was attracted to OD because I realised if we got the people factor right, other things would fall into place. What I love doing apart from helping clients in their business, is to listen to music, play table tennis, cycling and reading non-fiction

How Open Systems Theory is Relevant to Agile

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a science for understanding
and managing organizations was being formed. Frederick Taylor,
considered as the first ever management consultant, did extensive
studies to improve productivity by analysing production tasks and
implemented them successfully in several factories. Around the same
time, Max Weber developed his theories on ‘Bureaucracy’ and Henry Fayol,
his ‘Principles on Administration’. Management Science was thus born
and the primary concern remained with goals, structure and efficiency.
This science has it’s roots in the idea of a Newtonian clockwork
universe – that all systems work according to some predetermined rules
that keep them working as well-oiled machines. It was also believed that
to understand any system, we have to break it down into its parts,
which is nothing but analytical thinking. When organizations are thought
of as machines, it has its implications on how we understand
organizations and the sub-systems within – as closed systems.

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